It is common in conventional computing environments to connect a plurality of computing systems and devices through a communication medium often referred to as a network. In conventional network computing environments, a number of devices are used in addition to interconnected computing systems to efficiently transfer data over the network. Routers and switches are in general network devices which segregate information flows over various segments of a computer network. A segment, as used herein, is any subset of the network computing environment including devices and their respective interconnecting communication links.
As the demand for networking resources grows and more network devices are deployed in the network computing environment, the power consumption of the networked devices may be significant. In the context of a datacenter or other large-scale network computing environments, thousands of networked devices may be deployed. The amount of power consumed by the network devices and the monetary cost associated therewith may be considerable.